Well, considering the reason....all of them!

OMG Lynn. I completely forgot about you. I'll take care of it Monday. My face is red I have been so busy in my yard and by the time I get inside, I almost just melt from exhaustion.

Anyway, back to twit's birds. I think the red bead thing is a great idea, unless they get some relatives over to visit that don't know the rules. I'm sorry, but that's what went thru my head. I do hope you can find a way to shoo them off, before they become stew. I'll look in my Jerry Baker books to see if he recommends anything to stop them from eating the berries.

Chris, this recipe was given to me by a precious lady on DG a few years back and it works wonderful for squirrels and such. I just pour it around any area I don't want them bothering.

This was her post:

Debbie, my sister swears by the following recipe to keep away squirrels, moles, mice, racoons, possums, etc. from her garden. She has used it for years.

I bet it works for geese and snakes too. The dogs go around my garden now. It doesn’t hurt the animals, but it does keep them out. It’s like an electric fence . They go up to it and turn around

Into an old milk jug add:

2 cups water
3/4 Tbsp ground cayenne pepper
1/3 Shake a bottle of hot tabasco sauce and pour in 1/3
1 Tbsp Caster Oil
Squirt of liquid dishwashing detergent (Dawn or any other)
Shake everything well

Pour on plants or the ground where bulbs are planted. It doesn't harm plants or environment. You can mix bottles ahead of time and store as long as you wish.

For birdseeds, another trick that I use (my DS gave it to me) is to put cayenne pepper and tabasco sauce in a big plastic baggie. Shake well. Then throw in bird seeds and shake. Doesn't hurt birds and they don't even notice the hotness, yet keeps away mice, raccoons, etc. I especially like this because it doesn't draw rats/mice when cracked seeds fall to the ground.

Martha

I wasn't worried Debbie. So much was going on when I sent the plants. We were all scrambling thinking Cubits was going to shut down. But it didn't

I read an article in Scientific American a few years back about birds. It said, if I remember correctly, that birds really don't have much of a sense of taste, mainly just sense sugar. Supposedly, their vision sees much more into ultraviolet than ours. Fruit eating birds are supposed to take fruit based on color, much of it UV colors that we can't see. A red cherry, for example, may not seem red to a bird and be ignored until the cherry develops a UV color that triggers the bird to start eating it. I wish I could find the article again, as I'm sure there might be a clue to how to control robins there.

There are a lot of bird control products out there, including some high tech ones.

Take a look at this site for some interesting ones:

http://www.wildlife-control.co...

Very interesting twit. Garden supply has a light plant cover as well, if you don't mind looking at white over your plants. Mama used to have so much trouble with birds eating her figs. And she loved her figs, so it was war. She stopped having so many problems when she hung aluminum pie plates on her tree. Punch a hole with an ice pick and use ornament hooks to hang them. I have to say,however,I would have to paint something pretty on the pie tins.:rofl:

That is well worth the try Debbie. I will do that this year.

I finally gave up and put my entire small fruit collection in a PVC hoop house row, covered with fiberglass screen. the screen stays rolled up until the fruits start to ripen, then it gets closed up. You should hear the winged rats screech at me while I am doing this! I used bird net initially, but had problems with fruit eating insects, such as japanese beetles, so the screen keeps them out.

Now that is really a cleaver solution. Now you don't have to mess with cracking and whipping up all those tiny blue eggs.

But its no trouble at all and while the taste is not too great, oh, the satisfaction one gets....

Between the jays and the one squirrel that come into my yard, I more than understand.

I have a few very small pots of starter plants by our back door. I went out yesterday morning and a big fat toad had burrowed his way into one of the pots. Pushed the plant right out. They are such good little mosquito eaters though that I hate to throw him out!

I am with you on that Chris. It would be worth it just to have him stay around. Got a picture of him?

Yeah, I couldn't resist. I'll post it when I get home from work.

Here the little fella is. This is before he buried himself. He's still in there, by the way!

How sweet. I wish I had one. I love frogs & toads. We do have the little green tree frogs, but I have never seen a toad here. Sigh
I do have at least one newt, found him under the Japanese maple tree. : )

Yeah, toads are pretty cool. When I was a kid I used to go find a bunch and bring them in my sandbox. I'd make castles and roads, tunnels and rivers for them. Unfortunately they didn't appreciate all the work I did for them. But at the end of every day I made sure I returned them all to the gardens. They probably hid every time they saw me!

I think a newt would be cool too. We don't have those around here.

Ok, I have a question. Do ya'll have trouble with snakes (and no please don't show pictures) LOL. Every since I put the rocks down for my succulent garden, I keep finding snakes skins that they have shed on the rocks. That's all I need. I may just move that garden away from the house.

For the most part, we don't have any snakes around our area. Any idea what kind of snake it is?

They are just small garden snakes. About 24" long and skinny. But a snake is a snake. We have always had snakes, but I never saw any around the house until now. And the only evidence is their skin. I guess they are using the rocks to help them shed. But please............ could you do it somewhere else.

Yeah, if you don't like snakes, that's not something you want to find in your gardens. At least they aren't poisonous.